Basic Breath
Meditation Instructions

Thanissaro
Bhikkhu

From a talk given to a
conference on
AIDS, HIV and other Immuno-deficiency Disorders
in Long Beach, CA, Nov. 13, 1993

The technique I'll
be teaching is breath meditation. It's a good topic no matter what your
religious background. As my teacher once said, the breath doesn't belong
to Buddhism or Christianity or anyone at all. It's common property that
anyone can meditate on. At the same time, of all the meditation topics
there are, it's probably the most beneficial to the body, for when we're
dealing with the breath, we're dealing not only with the air coming in
and out of the lungs, but also with all the feelings of energy that
course throughout the body with each breath. If you can learn to become
sensitive to these feelings, and let them flow smoothly and
unobstructed, you can help the body function more easily, and give the
mind a handle for dealing with pain.

So let's all meditate for a few minutes.
Sit comfortably erect, in a balanced position. You don't have to be
ramrod straight like a soldier. Just try not to lean forward or back, to
the left or the right. Close your eyes and say to yourself, 'May I be
truly happy and free from suffering.' This may sound like a strange,
even selfish, way to start meditating, but there are good reasons for
it. One, if you can't wish for your own happiness, there is no way that
you can honestly wish for the happiness of others. Some people need to
remind themselves constantly that they deserve happiness -- we all
deserve it, but if we don't believe it, we will constantly find ways to
punish ourselves, and we will end up punishing others in subtle or
blatant ways as well.

Two, it's important to reflect on what
true happiness is and where it can be found. A moment's reflection will
show that you can't find it in the past or the future. The past is gone
and your memory of it is undependable. The future is a blank
uncertainty. So the only place we can really find happiness is in the
present. But even here you have to know where to look. If you try to
base your happiness on things that change -- sights, sounds, sensations
in general, people and things outside -- you're setting yourself up for
disappointment, like building your house on a cliff where there have
been repeated landslides in the past. So true happiness has to be sought
within. Meditation is thus like a treasure hunt: to find what has solid
and unchanging worth in the mind, something that even death cannot
touch.

To find this treasure we need tools. The
first tool is to do what we're doing right now: to develop good will for
ourselves. The second is to spread that good will to other living
beings. Tell yourself: 'All living beings, no matter who they are, no
matter what they have done to you in the past -- may they all find true
happiness too.' If you don't cultivate this thought, and instead carry
grudges into your meditation, that's all you'll be able to see when you
look inside.

Only when you have cleared the mind in
this way, and set outside matters aside, are you ready to focus on the
breath. Bring your attention to the sensation of breathing. Breathe in
long and out long for a couple of times, focusing on any spot in the
body where the breathing is easy to notice, and your mind feels
comfortable focusing. This could be at the nose, at the chest, at the
abdomen, or any spot at all. Stay with that spot, noticing how it feels
as you breathe in and out. Don't force the breath, or bear down too
heavily with your focus. Let the breath flow naturally, and simply keep
track of how it feels. Savor it, as if it were an exquisite sensation
you wanted to prolong. If your mind wanders off, simply bring it back.
Don't get discouraged. If it wanders 100 times, bring it back 100 times.
Show it that you mean business, and eventually it will listen to you.

If you want, you can experiment with
different kinds of breathing. If long breathing feels comfortable, stick
with it. If it doesn't, change it to whatever rhythm feels soothing to
the body. You can try short breathing, fast breathing, slow breathing,
deep breathing, shallow breathing -- whatever feels most comfortable to
you right now...

Once you have the breath comfortable at
your chosen spot, move your attention to notice how the breathing feels
in other parts of the body. Start by focusing on the area just below
your navel. Breathe in and out, and notice how that area feels. If you
don't feel any motion there, just be aware of the fact that there's no
motion. If you do feel motion, notice the quality of the motion, to see
if the breathing feels uneven there, or if there's any tension or
tightness. If there's tension, think of relaxing it. If the breathing
feels jagged or uneven, think of smoothing it out... Now move your
attention over to the right of that spot -- to the lower right-hand
corner of the abdomen -- and repeat the same process... Then over to the
lower left-hand corner of the abdomen... Then up to the navel...
right... left... to the solar plexus... right.. left... the middle of
the chest... right... left... to the base of the throat... right...
left... to the middle of the head...[take several minutes for each spot]

If you were meditating at home, you
could continue this process through your entire body -- over the head,
down the back, out the arms & legs to the tips of your finger &
toes -- but since our time is limited, I'll ask you to return your focus
now to any one of the spots we've already covered. Let your attention
settle comfortably there, and then let your conscious awareness spread
to fill the entire body, from the head down to the toes, so that you're
like a spider sitting in the middle of a web: It's sitting in one spot,
but it's sensitive to the entire web. Keep your awareness expanded like
this -- you have to work at this, for its tendency will be to shrink to
a single spot -- and think of the breath coming in & out your entire
body, through every pore. Let your awareness simply stay right there for
a while -- there's no where else you have to go, nothing else you have
to think about... And then gently come out of meditation.